Do Atheists celebrate Christmas?

Yes. Great time to spend with family

"The day named after... " I wouldn't try that line with Easter, or the days of the week, either.

Me, no. I duck and hide come Christmas.

What have we got? A commercial exploitation of a Christian overlay on a Pagan midwinter festival.

That leaves plenty of room for everyone to pick the bits they like and leave the rest, and have a good time as long as they don't get hooked up on being ones who are doing it "properly"/

Me, I'm not Christian or Pagan, I'm not into conspicuous consumption and I don't have family to visit or come visit me. So nothing much of Christmas is directly targeted at me. It comes anyway, so I'm some sort of collateral damage from a very long bombardment, these days.

Never mind. I'm not up for trying to ban it. The last group who seriously tried that were Christians: the Puritans of Oliver Cromwell's era, as the whole celebration was seen as "too Pagan" in nature.

It may have been named after a Christian god, but the overwhelming majority of the traditions associated with Christmas came from ancient pagan celebrations of the time when the days started getting longer again.

If Christians wanted to keep Christmas to themselves they shouldn't have demanded that the entire culture observe the holiday and shut down so they could celebrate.

Christmas trees aren't from Christianity.

Decorating with lights isn't from Christianity.

The feast isn't from Christianity

Caroling isn't from Christianity

Decking the halls isn't from Christianity

The tradition of gift exchange isn't from Christianity.

Mistletoe isn't from Christianity

The Yule log and Yuletide in general sure as f*ck aren't from Christianity.

Here's what the Christians brought to Christmas:

1) The name.

2) Santa Claus (aka Saint Nicholas of Myra -- a 4th century Christian bishop)

That's it. There's extremely little Christianity in Christmas.

In fact, Christmas wasn't even celebrated that much historically. It was a very subdued holiday for throughout the middle ages. In the 1600's, the Puritan movement was able to actually *BAN* the celebration of Christmas for quite a while (that's right, a group of Christians banned Christmas). It wasn't until the mid-1800's that Christmas started to become a big deal.

So, why shouldn't I celebrate this holiday that has very little to do with Christianity and for 1500 years Christians effectively ignored or actively fought against?

Well as far as I know, Christmas is a pagan holiday of harvest. And Christians just took it over and renamed it to Christmas. And Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, he was born in spring, sometime in March or in autumn, late September. And that is estimated according to what bible says. So I suggest you learn your history....

I celebrate the Yule Season. I don't celebrate it as a religious holiday because, let's face it, it's simply not. I celebrate it as a family gathering. It's the one time of year that my family gets together and I actually get to see everyone. And that is worth celebrating...plus my whole family is Christian and they don't know I'm Atheist.

I do not really celebrate Christmas, but I celebrate around Christmas time, the time of the winter solstice, which has been associated with festivals since before Christianity existed.

I don't think anyone celebrates x-mas as it was meant to be celebrated. You very well know that neither do you. X-mas is a tradition. Unfortunately it means spending time with people you have, listening to idiots in your family talking about problems you don't care about. That is x-mas. It has nothing to do with Jesus. Grow up.

That was taken from Pagan religions...... Jesus was born in october, so far as ive heard

Yeah. Has nothing to do with religion in my eyes. I give people gifts, they give me gifts. It's a fun day I prepare for when I get to go shopping for everyone even though I never know what to get people.